


the weight of another unearned victory

by tragicallynerdy



Category: UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: (it's minor but worth tagging), Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Canon, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tragicallynerdy/pseuds/tragicallynerdy
Summary: blessed are they who maintain justice (psalm 106:3)Aloysius Fogg rides for Jack County.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	the weight of another unearned victory

Aloysius rides for Jack County. He has a bag of gold and no regrets, and a long journey ahead of him. The letter from Sherriff Bullock and Kinsley’s wanted poster are tucked in his saddle bag beside provisions for the journey. He sleeps well at night, and dreams of nothing, and his heart holds no sorrow.

He’s five days out and six days past the night of the duel when emotions trickle back in. He’s not sure why they choose to return, or why they fled in the first place, but he finds some comfort in their presence.

The first thing he notices is the joy of being alive, the pride at having defeated some great evil, and the satisfaction of having done his job well. Sorrow is there as well, both the ever-present sorrow that has plagued his days for years and the new sorrow for the lost possibility of friendship. If he feels any regret, it is for the women and preacher he leftt behind; he knows there will be no kinship now. He feels some small sorrow for Amos Kinsley, but no regret; sorrow for having to kill who he thought could have been a good man, but no regret that justice has been served. The law is the law, after all, and he’s sworn to uphold it. His own feelings on the man in question aren’t important. And hasn’t almost every man he’s killed pled innocence, when faced with the bullet that will end his life?

Aloysius does not sleep well that night, but not because of the man he shot in the streets of Deadwood. His dreams are filled with the familiar burning church, and the singing (or screaming; he still can’t tell which). The next morning he wakes, and eats, and continues his ride south.

* * *

He arrives in Jack County on a Tuesday morning, dusty and tired from weeks on the road. The Sheriff’s office is easy to find, and as he hitches his horse he feels the familiar satisfaction at having completed the journey and finished the job. _Maybe Patrick Harvey can finally have peace now_ , he muses, _knowing that his brother’s killer has been brought to justice._

The Sheriff is pleased, and scrawls out a note that he sends off with a boy while Aly waits for payment. “Best let Harvey know,” he says with a grin. “He’s been waiting to hear that Kinsley’s dead for fifteen years.”

Aly smiles back, and accepts the whisky that’s offered him. Sheriff Ansel tells him of Harvey’s brother, and the murder so many years ago, and the hope that Harvey still held on to. They toast to justice, and one more murderer dead, and whatever sorrow he feels dissipates. _This is why I do it,_ he thinks as the whiskey burns his throat. _So no man who’s killed someone’s family will go unpunished._

When he leaves its with with more money in his pocket and more conviction in his work, his duty. The respect he felt for Clayton Sharpe has not dissipated, but it is tempered by the satisfaction of knowing that his work is good, that his work is _right_. He finds the nearest livery, then the best hotel. He spends the next few days getting to know the saloons in town and spending some of his hard-earned gold. He drinks whiskey and plays cards, and gets to know all the girls. He’s not happy, not quite, but he’s closer than he has been in years. (He ignores the part of him that remembers the recent and now lost happiness of having _people_ again; he has no room for regret here.)

* * *

Three days later he’s drinking in one of the better saloons when he overhears a conversation at the table behind him. He’s not trying to eavesdrop, but neither are they trying to be quiet.

“Did y'hear that the bounty on that asshole Kinsley finally got collected?”

Aly feels a surge of pride, and grins into his glass.

“No shit,” the man speaking laughs. “Someone finally bagged him. He’s a wiley fucker, been what – thirteen, fourteen years? Harvey must be real fuckin' pleased.”

“Mhm, sure Joe will be too.” They both laugh, and one orders another round. Aly orders another whiskey, and sits back in his chair, satisfaction blooming once more in his chest.

Twenty minutes later a man bursts into the saloon, and Aly catches a glimpse of a wide grin and clean-cut features before he joins the table behind him.

“Buy me a drink, boys, today’s a good day!” he crows, slamming into the nearest seat.

The other two laugh. “Finally heard about Kinsley, huh?”

“Sure fucking did!” He laughs with them, then there’s the sound of whiskey being poured. “That poor fucker’s been worth every penny I paid fifteen years ago.”

Aly cocks his head and frowns in confusion. One of the other men speaks up, pitching his voice lower, and Aly strains to hear. “C’mon Joe, keep your voice down, don’t want people overhearing.”

Joe laughs. “Overhearing what? That our Sheriff’s as crooked as a barrel of fish hooks? Everyone knows that, Fred, ain’t like it’s a secret."

Aly’s heart starts pounding, whole body still and focused on what he’s hearing. _That can’t be right, it can’t be…_

More whiskey is poured, then the Joe clears his throat. “A toast, boys.” Aly’s sure that if he looked behind him he’d find his glass raised high. “To that poor fucker Kinsley, and whoever shot him down. And to me and my good fortune -" he pauses for effect, and Aly tries to keep the growing nausea down. “It’s not every day that you get away with murder.”

Aly forces himself to sit while they laugh and cheer, to sip his drink and not draw attention to himself. He counts to one hundred, then again, then stands and walks out of the saloon, bile rising in his throat. He barely makes it down the nearest alley before he vomits, spattering the whiskey he just drank across his boots and the wall nearest to him. He stumbles across the alley and slumps to the ground, wiping at his mouth as Clayton’s words ring through his ears with vicious clarity.

(“And what if I told you that the law's been wrong all this time?” Clayton had snarled. “That the law ain’t a perfect thing, especially this side of the country? Many innocent men themselves end up still having to do for the deeds of the men who are cunning enough to be absolved of the noose.”)

_He tried to tell me,_ Aly thinks hysterically as tears trickle down his face. The satisfaction, the clarity, the conviction of being _right_ is gone, dissolved into the wind and the words of the man that should be dead instead of Amos Kinsley. Revenge crosses his mind, then dissipates; without the law behind him, it would be his own neck in the noose. Hollowness builds inside him. _He tried to tell me, but I didn’t care._

Aloysius sits in the dirty alley in Jack County, with more gold than he knows what to do with, but no friends to share it with. He knows where he’s been, but for the first time in his life, he doesn’t know where he’s going. The justice that he swears by has led him to do the unforgivable. He sits, and weeps, and knows that he will _always_ regret this; that he killed a good man, an innocent man. Aloysius Fogg sits alone in Jack County, and his heart holds only sorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated <3


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